Research shows that you’re more likely to develop food allergies if several members of your family have allergies. That includes any type of allergy, including hay fever.

If you have 2 allergic parents, you’re more likely to develop food allergy than someone with 1 allergic parent, according to Dr. Dean D. Metcalfe, chief of NIH’s Laboratory of Allergic Diseases in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

“There are many different genes or genetic traits that combine to cause different levels of allergies in some people,” Metcalfe says.

Source:NIH News in Health (NIH)2

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Allergies often run in families, but not every family member may be allergic to the same thing. Children living in homes with smokers are more likely to develop asthma.